Nintendo Download: 7th November (Europe)

The download details for Europe arrived a little later than usual this week, possibly because it's a rather lengthy release list. We have high profile retail games on Wii U and 3DS, along with some interesting download-only options and discounts both permanent and temporary. There's plenty to choose from, so let's get on with it.

Wii U eShop

Wii Sports Club (Nintendo, €1.99 / £1.79 for a day pass, €9.99 / £8.99 for individual sports) — There will be a free initial 24-hour day pass for the available sports, which can also be purchased in full, detailed below. This is the updated HD re-release of the classic Wii Sports, which also includes online play, Miiverse functionality and MotionPlus Controls. Remaining sports will be added in the coming months, and we'll review each download item of DLC individually.

Toki Tori (Two Tribes, €1.99 / £1.79, will be €3.99 / £3.59 from 6th December) — The first of three Two Tribes Classics coming to the Wii U eShop, this is the HD offering (with additional content) that's based on the PC release. Unlike its sequel, this title focuses on single screen fixed puzzles, some of which are exceptionally fiendish in later stages. We'll have a review for you when it launches, and until then you can check out our Toki Tori WiiWare review and our hands on impressions of the new release.

Batman: Arkham Origins (WB Games, €59.99 / £49.99) — Arriving late (in Europe) and at a premium price, this is the latest in the popular Rocksteady revival of the Dark Knight, though this was developed in-house by WB Games. The Wii U version lacks the new online multiplayer mode, while critical opinion has been mixed. We're current 'being Batman' to swoop in with a review, soon.

3DS eShop

KORG M01D (DETUNE, €24.99 / £19.99) — This is an app that may have been eagerly anticipated by musicians that fancy a decent creation / composition tool on the go, even if it does come at a premium price. This is an expanded version of a DS title, with 342 "unique sounds" among other features. We'll get our groove on and let you know what we think.

Brunch Panic (CIRCLE Entertainment, €3.99 / £3.35) — A challenging resource-management title that sees you frantically preparing meals for customers, this is simple, pick-up-and-play gaming with cute presentation. On that level it works quite well, as we argued in our Brunch Panic review.

Arcade Classics 3D (Enjoy Gaming, €2.99 / £2.50, will be €3.99 / £3.30 from 29th November) — We're often cautious of collections that offer multiple 'classics' for the price of one, as they often do poor jobs of multiple games as opposed to one excellent experience. Our review will be live soon, but we will say it's not exactly full of praise...

Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate (WB Games, €39.99 / £34.99) — Developed by Armature Studios, this is a 2.5D take on the popular franchise, and serves as a continuation of the storyline in the console version. We'll bring you our opinion on it as soon as possible.

Just the free 24-hour Wii Sports Club pass for me

Nothing for me this week

From the web

Welsh ex-pat Tom is responsible for the day-to-day running of the site. He's the guy to thank for the generally brilliant nature of the content which massages your eyeballs on a daily basis. Also has an unhealthy obsession with all things Bowser.

There's so much out this year it's insane! Wish Arkham Origins had launched the same time as the other here (like it did in the states) so there could be one less thing on my "need to get" list this week.@dew12333 they never seem to release COD games as downloadables (on release date at least). Would've liked a download version of it, but I'm guessing it would've been a silly money purchase over the pyshical version.

Hate to say it, but, only option you seem to need every single week in your poll is "Nothing for me this week" because every single f,ing week that's what I have to choose, so disappointing once again, the VC continues to be an utter waste of space/time on the Wii U, why is it even there, pointless.

Yay, Toki Tori is out this week. Also have been extremely looking forward to Arkham Origins. Although I have found out on IGN, it has quite a few bugs on it with one being unable to progress in the story. I hope the delay had the time to include fixes with the game.

Where the HELL is Call of Duty????? Why is it not in the eshop?And what happened to batman being cheaper as it lacks the multiplayer????It's £35 on ps3 on the high street. £40 on day one. It's £50 on psn. If this was suppose to be cheaper as it lacks multiplayer why is now the same price or more expensive????But more importantly, why the hell is CoD not on eshop????

So Ubisoft made a "week only special offer" for then keep anyway the prices down permanently? @.@;

Not sure if feel tricked or not XDI admit I downloaded a couple of games at 15€ even after seeing them in stores for 20€, but if I knew they were going to copy the stores' prices on the eShop after this week... not sure I would have made both those downloads.

@Gold - Since it's announcement Wii sports Club has been known to be free for 24 hours after you fist launch it, then you can buy each sport for $9.99 or rent each one for 24 hours for $1.99 (for when you have a party).

Its actually 1 one of the very few times I can recall that Nintendo announced all the relevant info at the same time they announced a new game.

@ThomasBW84 -"They were slightly cheaper in the temporary discount than the permanent equivalents, so you still win "

Well played. I'm still impressed by all the permanent discounts, Nintendo Selects / Players Choice games in less than 1 year.

If the EU and US stores both update on Thur why do we always get the EU stuff days earlier - always on Mondays maybe? - but the US stuff Thur morning? My kid is really excited for the Pikmin levels, he's not big on treasure hunting.

£39.99 each for Layton & Winter Olympics? What a f*cking joke! I'll stick to the physical copies for £29.86 and £29.99. I had high hopes of going all digital this generation, but the pricing policy prevents me from justifying the download. Get it sorted Nintendo! I'll only be downloading Wii Sports Tennis, at least that has a palatable price.

I bought Arkham Origins on PS3 at the weekend (yes, £35 retail), I'm really enjoying the game even though I gave up on Arkham City. I think I like the representation of the city at Christmas... As I don't have a Wii U, just not interested enough by the games to invest in the console, I'm just waiting for the SEGA classics on 3DS at the moment.

Agree Deus EX very strong reboot of a great 2 year old game, but for my money AC4 is the best 3rd party game on WiiU....it is technically nealry flawless....Better textures, lighting, effects, and framerate than ps360 versions, get this quick load times (I think the 1.1gb update on first boot is a core component install), all extra functions like uplay, comapnion app, and online are working and its an awesome game. Right now GOTY considered IMO. Ubi really deserves credit for making this great on WiiU so please support it...worlds better than AC3 both as a game and as a well executed game!

Definitly getting Bowling But wasnt Batman supposed top be a tad cheaper on WiiU because of the missing features ? And not it costs more than your regular Nintendo game (wich mostly peak at 49,95 € over here) or am i mixing it up with another game ?On a completely different note: I passed up Dragons Crown because i beleave that i read somewhere, that a WiiU version was considered...Was it a rumor, is it on its way or is my mind playing tricks on me on this one ?

@MadAussieBloke You mean to tell me that the NES and SNES libraries are rubbish? You've got to be kidding me. The SNES alone has dozens of fantastic games, never mind the many gems on the NES.The real problem is Nintendo refuses to release their big classic titles at more than a trickle. They could flood the Virtual Console with excellent NES and SNES titles, but they seem content to push out their lackluster back catalog one or two painful games at a time while ignoring games like Link to the Past, Yoshi's Island, Starfox, Mario 3 and Mario RPG.

Getting Toki Tori and maybe Toki Tori 2+ as well, I'll try Wii Sport Club on the weekend to see if its worth £8.99 a sport (from what I've seen so far on youtube I feel £5 would have been more reasonable).

Toki Tori and Pikmin 3 DLC for me this week. It says 'Battle enemies stages 7-10' though - does this mean stage 6 is free again?I might also get Brunch Panic. I wish Nintendo would take a leaf out of Ubisoft's book and decrease the price of download titles as their retail equivalents become cheaper.

@thesilverbrick You can already get the best of NES & SNES through the WiiShop anyway and I have already played those to death... Earthbound was a surprise but in the end after all the hoopla it really was just a very easy mediocre game

Wii Sports Club - £8.99 per event. Really, Nintendo? It's initial success in the west (leading to the Wii itself being successful) with all ages was partly due to the fact that it was free. This is just greed.

Do I smell a new trend: Temporarily reducing the price of a game, then 1 week later a permanent reduction! It happened with Myst, and now it happens with the Wii u Ubisoft games! If they plan a permanent price-reduction in such a small timeframe, they shouldn't do a temporarily one!!

@SanderEvers I never said Wii Sports Resort was free, but I'll stick with it because it has a damn sight more content than the orignal Wii Sports does....just porting the original game in bits and pieces is pretty lazy IMHO even if they have been updated to use Motionplus (bowling & golf were already updated for Motionplus in Wii Sports Resort anyway, only with tennis being replaced by table tennis.)

As for the original Wii Sports, I specified that it was free in the West as it was always a separate title in Japan, Even though technically it wasn't 'free', it was the pack in game included with all Wii consoles sold in the West from launch day and for an extremely long time afterwards, you couldn't buy a Wii and not get Wii Sports with it, or buy Wii Sports separately. So it will have been considered a 'free' game with the Wii by millions of people who bought the console, especially the casual market.

Given that most people with a Wii (especially in the West) will also have a copy of Wii Sports, I can't see Nintendo managing to attract many of these gamers to download Wii Sports Club at £8.99 a time for individual events, when the Wii U is backward compatible and will run the original Wii version of Wii Sports just fine.

@LittleIrves That will work to some degree but it wouldn't be quite as accurate. Some of the events in past editions (which I hope make it to Club eventually) have not really had much leg movement but still are an excellent source of cardio (Wakeboarding, Frisbee, Golf, Swordplay, Rowing, Boxing). Since the Wii Fit Meter is primarily a pedometer, it's not going to register for these activities. Some of these are actually in Wii Fit U too so it's not as big a deal (Rowing, Boxing) but still it would be nice. (It would also be nice if Wakeboarding could optionally use the balance board)

@ToxieDogg@SanderEvers - Wii Sports was free enough. Wii was $250 at launch including sports, PS3 was $499 or $599, Xbox360 was $499, neither of those other 2 included games, so it LOOKED free, thats how peoples brains work.

The kicker is though, when they took Sports out of the box it was $19.99 for all 5 Sports, so selling them for $9.99 each now isn't cool, even w/ online. But - and this is what Nitnedo has going for it now - the only people who currently own a Wii U will pay $9.99 each, the people who bought a Wii for Sports haven't upgraded yet. Maybe this Christmas, and they may buy it then but probably not as Wii Sports players don't DL games. (Generalization but true enough.)